Liverpool, unable to obtain whig support, became prime minister and the chief of a purely tory ministry on 7 June 1812. His succession to Perceval was hardly interrupted by a brief resignation. Though still resolutely opposed to catholic emancipation himself, he was obliged to treat the question as open in order to include pro-catholic tories in his administration. His ministry, though it did not include Canning and was considered a weak one at the time of its formation, lasted for nearly fifteen years, a period which has only been exceeded by the ministries of Walpole and Pitt. He was at once confronted with many difficulties. The Peninsular and American wars had to be carried on, a Toleration Act to be passed acceptable at once to bishops and dissenters, the East India Company's charter to be revised and renewed, and the constantly recurring scandals arising from the relations of the Prince and Princess of Wales to be smoothed over. The prosperity of the ministry was secured by Wellington's victorious career, which was facilitated by their vigorous support. At the visit of the allied sovereigns to London in 1814 Lord Liverpool was rewarded by being made a knight of the Garter (9 June). The re-arrangement of the map and affairs of Europe next engaged his attention, and he was in the main successful in enforcing his views upon the allies, supported as he was by the moral influence which resulted from his policy of attempting no aggrandisement for Great Britain. At the same time he caused an international prohibition of the slave-trade to be so strongly insisted on at Vienna that in a few years from that time it was forbidden by every power in Europe. After Waterloo the question of the place of Napoleon's exile was decided by the government of Lord Liverpool in favour of St. Helena, though he wrote privately to Castlereagh, ‘we wish that the King of France would hang or shoot Buonaparte as the best termination of the business.’ Even this imprisonment could only be justified by ingenious legal arguments, which placed Napoleon in the category of ‘hostes humani generis;’ and accordingly in the following year Lord Liverpool passed an act to authorise his permanent detention. The rearrangement of French affairs by the treaty of 1815, and again at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, was again in the main effected in accordance with the principles laid down by him for the guidance of the British representatives.
Domestic questions became pressing after the peace. Distress and discontent universally prevailed, and the burden of the public debt was beyond all example. The ministry was fiercely attacked, and its own unpopularity was increased by that of the regent. The House of Commons threw out the property-tax by 238 to 201, and Lord Liverpool was obliged to face the possibility of being forced to resign. The government conceded the loan malt-tax without conciliating the opposition. A direct vote of censure was defeated by no more than 29. Liverpool then pressed the regent to come up to town from Brighton, as it might at any moment become necessary to have him at hand. This implied a not distant resignation, and the alarmed prince thereupon pressed his minister to retain his post, promising him his strongest support. In deference to the prince's wishes the cabinet consented to remain in office. Matters did not improve. In 1817 stagnation of trade, bad harvests, and high prices had produced industrial distress, rioting, and outrage. Liverpool dealt with the disorder in an uncompromising spirit. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. For the relief of distress less energy was displayed. Lord Liverpool moved for the appointment of a committee to investigate comprehensively the administration of poor-law relief. In the following year he carried a proposal fixing 1819 as the time for the resumption of cash payments, which, indeed, might have taken place forthwith but for his desire to assist the French government in bringing out a loan, a part of the arrangement made by the powers at Aix. He cordially supported Peel's bill for the regulation of the employment of children in factories, and the condition of the people began to show signs of improvement. Accordingly, in 1819, reduction of taxation and better harvests had considerably diminished the previous distress, but the growth of radicalism and the increasing demand for parliamentary reform produced a formidable popular agitation. After the discreditable suppression of the meeting in St. Peter's Fields at Manchester in August 1819, discontent and opposition became again very active in the north. Again Lord Liverpool dealt with it summarily. Parliament was assembled in November, and the ‘Six Acts,’ prohibiting drilling, seditious meetings and seditious newspapers, and providing for the trial of offences against the public peace, for the seizure of arms, and for greater measures of precaution on the part of justices than had hitherto been legal, were quickly passed. Even in the House of Commons the opposition minorities never exceeded 150, and the Liverpool administration was everywhere triumphant. But in a few months its existence was imperilled by the question of the
